Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

Samsung‘s Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are still looking strong even though the Edge 7 has failed due to the battery problem. It had a phone that was better than the HTC 10, better than the Huawei P9 and it’s still better than the iPhone 7. But then the exploding Galaxy S8 and Samsung took a bit of a hit. Is it enough to make you think twice about buying a Samsung device?
In a word, no. The Galaxy S7 is still the best phone we’ve reviewed this year. Maybe the Google Pixel phone will have something to say about that though. After the massive, and much needed, change in design direction Samsung took with the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge in 2015, all rumours pointed to things staying pretty much the same for the Galaxy S7. Well, it’s not like Apple, HTC or Sony make drastic changes to their industrial design every year. And that’s exactly the case here. Place the Galaxy S7 next to the S6 and you’d be hard pushed to instantly pick which one is which. Frankly, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The S6 was already one of the best-looking phones around, and the Galaxy S7 follows suit. It’s an absolute fingerprint magnet, though. After a few minutes of use, the entire back becomes a grubby mess that needs wiping down with a microfibre cloth.
Along the top is the Nano SIM tray, which now holds a microSD slot, plus a microphone. The bottom houses the headphone socket, another microphone, a speaker and a micro USB port for charging.
That speaker is one of the few missteps on this phone. It’s downward-facing, gets easily blocked by my hands when playing a game and it sounds tinny and distorted at high volume. I guess front-facing speakers weren’t included so the screen surround could be kept minimal, but it’s still a disappointment when a speaker sounds this bad.